Says guards teach children not to obey traffic signals

A city resident lodged a complaint regarding the crossing guards who help children cross the city’s busier streets on the way to and from school each day.

Tom Pivinski said at the May 15 council meeting that the crossing guards’ techniques may be “creating a real danger for our kids.”

Pivinski was driving down Main Street and hit a green light when a crossing guard put up his stop sign and crossed two children, he said.

“The light was green for me and red for them,” he said. “I stopped and said, ‘You’re not teaching our children the way to obey crossing lights.’ And he said, ‘I’ll do it the way I want to do it.'”

Pivinski has seen this happening at Main Street and Grand and Bangs avenues.

“We have these kids learning that the lights don’t have anything to do with them,” he said.

The crossing guards are “not instructed to perform like that,” Police Chief Mark Kinmon said. “We just had a training session with our crossing guards. Historically, in the city, it’s been a sore spot with the police department. Their performance hasn’t been this below-average.”

The police department is working to improve the crossing guards, Kinmon said, and also ordering uniforms.